Review:

Every once in a blue moon I attend a screening for review that is something special. A perfect storm of action, adventure, plot, acting, thrills, special effects, direction, and heart. These are the movies that make reviewing mountains of crap all worthwhile. This, however, is not one of these times.

Vampires: Rise of the Fallen is an abysmal mess. Why someone would voluntarily choose to rip-off the worst parts of Underworld, Blade 2, and Twilight, combining them into a rancid casserole of fucktardery is beyond me. VRotF revolves around good vampires vs. bad vampires vs. humans funded by the Vatican vs. werewolves. I think. Honestly, it doesn't matter, because it's a train wreck. The "heavy", and I use that term ironically, is a chunky vampire named Maximus (really?), who is seriously pushing about 400lbs. Apparently the vampires in this universe are afraid of sunlight, garlic, AND cardio. He's about as intimidating as the Pillsbury Doughboy, with a penchant for lip gloss and eyeliner. The rest of the clan, the gay cowboy vampire, the emo vampire, the slutty vampire, the skinny, ginger, pleather-clad vampire, are all equally as threatening.

The direction is so pathetically incompetent that I've personally recorded better framed shots on my cell phone while on a roller-coaster in the midst of a grand mal seizure. Granted I've never directed an actual movie before, and obviously Shawn Anthony hasn't either, but I would suspect that the first page of the syllabus for DIRECTING 101 states, "When speaking words, try and get the actor's entire face in the shot". Apparently this particular director was absent on that day. Take a drink whenever you see someone speaking with half of their face within frame and you'll be inebriated in minutes. Now, every filmmaker worth their weight in salt has a signature look and feel to their movies, here it's evidently called lining up every actor you have all in a row, within the same frame, and have them awkwardly interact with each other like constipated mannequins on valium. It's like watching an off, off, off Broadway live action production of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper, replacing disciples with cosplayers from a Criss Angell: Mindfreak convention.

The action in Vampires: Rise of the Fallen is absurdly laughable. Ever wonder what it would look like to watch a gaggle of close-talkers fight each other? Well wonder no more! Can you think of any reason why a guy with a gun would feel compelled to run right up to a guy with a sword? Yeah, me neither. The fight choreography consists of criminally unathletic people moving in unintentional slow-motion while wielding fencing foils. I've seen better fight sequences in my own wedding video. The acting, almost across the board, is better than the trite dialogue deserves. In particular from Jessica Felice as Scarlett, and the actor who played John (who is not credited on IMDB, likely by choice), who do their best to make reams of ridiculous sounding dialogue more palatable.

Since this was a screening and not a final product, there is a (slim) chance that the creators of Vampires: Rise of the Fallen can turn things around and release something of merit. All it would take is a new script, a new villain, and a director with a modicum of talent.

Video, Audio and Special Features:

Video, audio and special features will not be graded as this was a screening.